Downtown Halifax gets three outdoor pianos for the summer

Haligonians will be soon be able to sit down and play three new outdoor pianos across the city.

The project - called #PlayMeHfx- will run from June to August. The pianos can be found in three downtownlocations:Queen's Wharf at the Halifax waterfront, Cornwallis Park and at the corner of Barrington and George street.

Dalhousie planning student and musician Peter Nightingale was inspired when he saw the indoor piano at Alderney Landing ferry terminal. He teamed up with another planning student, Jeremy Banks, and together they researched the concept of outdoor pianos.

Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal have all benefited from similar projects, Nightingale explains. When he and Banks discovered those projects had been successful, they pitched their idea to the Halifax Downtown Business Commission and the Waterfront Development Corporation.

Both groups have helped fund and facilitate #PlayMeHfx.

"The whole project went from inception to rolling out the pianos in a matter of just a few months."

Nightingale has said the pianos will showcase talents of everyday people, and encourage strangers to become friends

Play it again, Sam

So far, the outdoor pianos in other cities have survived many summer seasons. Nightingale said those cases prove outdoor pianos in Halifax will be respected.

He calls it a social trust experiment.

"When you're taking something as delicate as a piano and you're putting it in a public space with really, nobody watching out for it, nobody guarding it specifically ... We're saying 'Hey, this belongs to everybody', and we're hoping everyone will kind of take care of it."

According to Nightingale, if the pianos are kept safe over the next three months, the experiment will be a success. In that event, the project might be expanded for future years.

If the pianos are damaged, Nightingale said there's only so much money to sustain the project.

"It all comes down to how the community reacts to it, whether or not they adopt the piano and make it their own. We have a bit of a contingency fund there for repairs and maintenance, should things go wrong," he said

The pianos have been painted by local artists Catherine Laroche and Maddy Knott. They will be ready to play in time for 100in1 Day on June 6.